Serves `em Right

The Satisfactions Outweigh The Frustrations For Many Condo Board Members

March 16, 1990|By Jerry DeMuth.

When Emma Winkler bought a condo in a high-rise building in Downers Grove seven years ago, the hall lighting was dim, the carpets were worn shag and a repainting project had been stopped only half-finished two years earlier.

``The building has become the most desirable of the 15 buildings in the development and, although condo values don`t inflate as do single-family homes, the value of my condo has risen from $53,000 to $80,000,`` says Winkler.

It didn`t happen by magic, though. She had pushed the improvements after getting on the building`s condominium board.

``To know that the value of our building grew tremendously as a result gave me a lot of satisfaction,`` she says.

Despite Winkler`s experience and role in rescuing a declining building, most condominium board members do not benefit so greatly from their work. Yet, she and others stress, it is the condo boards and their invaluable but unheralded members that enable these developments to function and maintain their value. This alone can attract people to serve on the board, and their willingness to learn and to work with others is perhaps the most important qualification.

``Board members must keep in mind that they want to improve the value of the property as a whole and keep it up as best they can,`` says Winkler, who is still a board member and owns a condo at the Downers Grove complex, although she now lives in a condominium town home development in St. Charles. ``But many have tunnel vision and are looking to get something done personally or for their unit.``

A matter of caring

Barbara Wick, president of the Illinois chapter of the Community Association Institute, the nonprofit educational and informational association that serves homeowner groups, says that people who ``care about the quality of the community in which they live`` are ideal candidates for board membership. But power seekers, people who are focused on a particular issue or people who are angry at the board for a single decision should not be on a board, she says.

Many condo owners never attend board meetings but get irate over some board action and then get on the board, Winkler points out. But their anger often dissipates once they understand why decisions were reached.

Short-tempered homeowners can be a real problem, and they often drive members off the board, she says. Patience and good communications skills are essential under these circumstances.

``People are going to have to take some abuse from unit owners,`` says Wick, who also is vice president of Condominium Insurance Specialists of America. ``But they do not have to put themselves in a position of taking an extraordinary amount of abuse.``

All kinds of coverage

Her company, which handles insurance for condominiums and cooperatives, recently was asked by a condo board member whether his personal property was covered under the condo association`s insurance policy for any damage done by angry unit owners.

``The answer is yes,`` she says, but points out that her office never has had any such claims. ``I`ve heard people talk about eggs on the front screen door and rotten tomatoes on the car, but I`ve never heard about anything serious.``

The most important qualification for serving on a condo board, according to Winkler, is attending board meetings-something few unit owners do.

Thomas R. Meyers, president of the Carl Sandburg Village No. 7 board, one of 15 condo associations at Sandburg Village on the Near North Side, notes that even when the board was scheduled to approve a 29 percent increase in the budget several years ago, only six people showed up.

The two buildings (616 total units) that his board represents are now undergoing a $1 million exterior renovation, which will include new roofs. It`s being done without special assessments because six years ago the board approved, by one vote, boosting the reserves, Meyers says.

``People in the building have to feel they`re getting their money`s worth,`` he says, ``and the people on the board have to be involved.``

Listen up

Meyers says that the only criteria needed to be a good member are a willingness to attend board meetings, usually held monthly, to listen at those meetings and to contribute to them. ``You have to work as a unit,`` he says.

``It`s very people-intensive.``

A commitment to spending enough time to do the job right also is needed, adds Meyers, a commodity trader in the Standard & Poor`s 500 pit at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He says he spends about 20 hours a week on board activities, including about two hours of meetings.